2016 MSI player rankings by position

1.) Bang – SKT

Bae “Bang” Jun-sik is the most under appreciated player in all of League of Legends.

It doesn’t matter what SKT’s roster looks like – Marin, Blank, Bengi, Blank – it really doesn’t matter, but Bang is always going to play at the highest of levels. He has been so consistent that people easily take him for granted.

Sure, he is gifted with the fact that his opponents have to greatly worry about his teammates, and he takes full advantage of that.

At Katowice, Bang led the tournament in KDA (19.6) and had the fifth-highest percentage of his team’s damage (30.9 percent). Needless to say, he went off.

He is absolutely crushing this season so far, and there’s no reason to expect him to slow down at MSI.

2.) NL – FW

Finally, the last head to the three-headed monster for FW: Hsiung “NL” Wen-An.

A lot of people still don’t want to give him the credit he deserves, but he has been so good this split that people cannot overlook him anymore. In the regular season, NL lit up the LMS with the fourth-highest KDA at 7.6 (best at his position), 66.7 percent kill participation and 30.7 percent of his team’s total damage (tied for the fourth-highest in the league).

People needed to see him carry over that type of performance in the playoffs, and that’s exactly what he did. In six postseason games, NL finished with a 9.9 KDA, 74.5 kill participation and 27.3 percent of his team’s damage.

He is going to surprise a lot of people at MSI (like most of his teammates will), and the only matchup that is likely to give him difficulties is with the one man ranked above him – Bang.

3.) Wuxx – RNG

RNG switched things up a bit at the attack damage carry (ADC) position by swapping around Zhu “NaMei” Jia-Wen and Cheng “Wuxx” Wang in their starting lineup throughout the split, but it was the latter who ultimately held onto the spot and won them their first LPL title.

Wuxx was mostly consistent all split long, but Royal will need him to take things to another level if they want to bring another MSI title to China.

Wuxx didn’t exactly play poorly at Katowice, but he left a lot to be desired. At the event, Wuxx had a solid KDA (4.4) and kill participation (73.8 percent), but he had the lowest percentage of his team’s damage (24.0 percent) among all other attack damage carries. He is going to have to make that number a lot higher for RNG to go far at MSI.

4.) Emperor – G2

Unlike most players at his position, Kim “Emperor” Jin-hyun isn’t asked to carry games for his team. All he needs to do is be a serviceable ADC that his team can rely on, and he is good at doing that.

The one alarming thing for him is that he is known to get caught out more often than he should, and that led to him having the most deaths (40) of any ADC in the regular season.

That will be one area that teams try to expose at MSI when facing G2 – shutting down their bot lane and Emperor. If he can avoid that happening, G2 should be fine. He just has to remember to not force anything and let Trick and PerkZ do all the hard stuff.

5.) Stixxay – CLG

Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes will be the x-factor for CLG if they are to win some games and actually make some noise.

In the regular season, Stixxay played pretty safe and almost scared. That’s not too crazy for a rookie, but it would have been alarming if he couldn’t pick things up in the playoffs. Luckily for CLG, he did reach another level when it mattered the most.

“However, in the playoffs, something switched for Stixxay and he actually did the highest percentage of his team’s damage out of everyone at 33.0 percent.”

In the regular season, Stixxay had the second-lowest percentage of his team’s damage of attack damage carries at only 24.1 percent. The only ADC that did less than him was Brandon “Mash” Phan with 22.4 percent.

That’s not the type of damage you’d like to see from your attack damage carry.

However, in the playoffs, something switched for Stixxay and he actually did the highest percentage of his team’s damage out of everyone at 33.0 percent. Well, Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong did 33.1 percent of his team’s damage, but he only played in three games so we’re not counting him.

CLG have a sliver of hope if Stixxay can continue playing like he did in the playoffs.

6.) Achuu – SUP

Nicolaj “Achuu” Ellesgaard played well in the IWCI and should be able to compete fairly well with a few of the other attack damage carries.

In the event that won his team the spot for MSI, Achuu finished with a 5.3 KDA, 67.8 percent kill participation and did 28.4 percent of his team’s total damage in 15 games.

He probably won’t be able to hang with Bang, NL or Wuxx, but he should be able to give the other two players a good fight.

Next: Supports